


Stealing From the Thief

by archea2



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s13e23 Let the Good Times Roll, First Kiss, Fix-It, Fluff, M/M, Sibling Incest, What's not to love in Sam's smile, episode AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 00:44:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14726756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: Sam smiles. Dean fights. Jack marvels.





	Stealing From the Thief

**Author's Note:**

> Another quickie, because (a) jinkies, that smile!, and (b) something tells me it's gonna be a while before we see Sam and Dean together again.

_The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief._

W. Shakespeare

 

If you’d told Dean (Sam did, once, on an Armageddon wake and a gut-level rush of confession) that penance was in their bloodline, too – lying low, waiting for the next in line to trip and cross a sulfur-yellow line, so it could surge, and another Winchester atone as he’d sinned... John with a bang, Sam with a fall… then Dean would (and did, that wake) have stifled your mouth with his hand, and put his own lips, still in their bee-stung prime, to your ear. Saying, _These ashes_ _are not on you_ , _Sammy._

So, nope, Dean’s not the type to part with an eye or a tooth, or model the sackcloth.

But…

"Yeah," he says eight years later to Michael Redux, and – deep, deeper, deepest down – to the pit in him. 

Pit of guilt. Deep dark hole. And so, an eye? Or a tooth? Is bupkiss, when it was _all_ of Sam he bartered for Sam’s life, that day, on the principle that you only risk what you value. Sam’s body – his brain – his big, warm, erect heart, acting as a proxy whenever Dean ended up losing heart (generally six feet under), only for Dean to pimp the lot over to some eldritch he’d known less than an hour. Later, Sam forgave him. Dean didn’t. Not even when the tide turned, and let the Mark under _his_ skin. Stalemate, say you? Tit for tat? Ha. If only. But no. Because if you ask Dean, a Mark is… is Karma spelled assward. Nothing else but all of Dean’s amok decisions, multiplied and slammed home, and given a free hand.

Nothing to do with penance. 

But this, this… unholy communion, once he gulps in Michael, and the archangel kah-booms his heart; soaks Dean’s optic nerves in white-hot _blue_ static (and _blue_ hurts, more than the Vegas club lights ever did after a night out) so his eyes fucking see themselves from the inside. Tied to a comet? Please. Try a fucking solar wind.

This is Dean's to bear. All of it. The part of him that’s not busy figuring how to GPS God’s eldest closes his eyes and gives himself up. Not to Michael, no – to the optimum pain, and optimum humility, of being unselved. Like Sam before. It’s gonna be insta-penance, because they’re on speed dial and there’s a kid to save. But Dean has always been one to multitask. 

Then Michael blinks him, and there's Sam’s, and Dean is letting his shadow-self unfold as wide as he can. It’s penance – it’s _I know now_ and _nevermore_ , and it’s also Dean telling Sam to grab Jack and crawl back under his wing.

But Sam’s face stands up like a man. And marvels. 

Oh god, Sam’s face.

He looks like he did, a little kid, when Dean braved Dad’s thunderbolts and hid Easter cream eggs in the car. He looks like Dean is Batman, Launcelot and Dad, three in one. 

He looks so hopeful.

And his hope is enough to sweep Dean off the floor, even as Sam cradles Jack between an arm and a hand, protectively. Michael be damned – Sam is Dean’s fuel. And Dean is _Sam_ ’s sword, so Sam can pummel by proxy at the Adversary. Let Michael think he’s driving this round – Dean knows better. They’ve traded roles: the angel’s the tool. _Ha_ , Dean thinks uncharitably – unwisely, letting his guard slip – his next spin in the air wheeling him back in time, to Lucifer’s fist blackening his cheek. 

But Hope cries out "Dean!", raising echoes of Sam in a ghost town, and, nevermore. Never again. The blade leaps from Sam’s hand to his, a mere break on its journey up and through, to the hilt. Finally. _Finally_. 

Jack looks out from under Sam’s wing, mouth wide.

And when Sam joins his gaze, he’s smiling.

 _He’s smiling_.

It feels to Dean as if what was taken from him – the joy that bubbled up in Baby Sam, in every coo, giggle, prank, toothiest grin; later, in those Coke-sponsored happy hours, in Sam’s laughter at Dean’s expense, head flung back, sparking Dad’s rare rumble; in Sam’s faith and his iron hope for himself before the great Winchester chasm, in Sam’s very breath of life – all of this has been returned.

You don’t salt and burn Satan, more’s the pity. But Dean spits once, for good measure, before he turns again to Sam.

To Sam’s face, lit up from inside with trembling, utter relief as he lifts it to Dean. 

All human. And Dean wants a share of it. Wants ground level, where Sam is, even if he’s flying with impunity and a bird’s-eye view on the world. And so he breathes, cautiously, and exhales Michael with a weed-smoker’s ease, lowering himself as he does. Sam, meanwhile, is slouching forward so he can smile into Dean's eyes, and it's perfect, and it’s too little. Seeing’s not enough. Touching, yeah. They touched Jesus in the Bible, right? To make sure he was there, Pastor Jim told him once, alive and well? Well, then. If Dean is to atone, at least let him to be at one – be close, be where the breathing, smiling core of Sam is – and – 

Sam strains forward, and Dean brings their smiles together.

 _Brother_ says a white-hot voice, but the kiss mutes it like a hand. Dean’s lips, no longer stung, still muscle and want; Sam’s, made tender-hearted by his silent joy. Michael drops to a hush, squeezed into a corner of Dean’s own silence. Only their breaths, sweetly damp, heard at close quarters.

Sam’s mouth gives and gives. Forgives, perhaps, in its humid laughter. Dean will have it all. Touches his thumb to a dimple, lightly, stamping himself to Sam’s bliss. Pulls back to mouth _Bust our Hitler record, man_ , just to launch that smile again, oh, there, oh, beauti…

" _Beh voh tah mo_ ," Jack says behind them. A beat; a shuffling of feet. Jack tries again, eagerly. "With your mouths open."

"Uh," says Sam, his gasp slotting into Dean’s "Right on the mark". Jack beams from the approval.

"It’s…" And now Sam is struggling with more than joy. "Jack, we, I'm so sorry…"

"No!" And, pat when Michael is stirring alert, Jack flings him back to the corner simply by clasping Dean's arm. "No, no, this is pure. This is not-sin. Sin against blood was my father giving me the blade, not this, not the mouth sharing of _spiritus_."

"Vital breath," Sam translates - automatically, if unnecessarily – for Dean. "Wait, does he mean…"

"Hush," Dean says, wrapping the word in another kiss. "The kid’s right, and we got this. Take his other hand." 

Between the fifth and sixth ribs, under the pleura and through the intercostal muscle: where a bullet once found his dad when he was half Dean’s present age. _What doesn’t kill you hurts like a bitch, kiddo. Still. Better sore than sorry._ Dean smiles, guides the blade in. The pain is agony, but Jack‘s fingers loiter on the silver, and whatever fluid Jack is hosting has Dean’s human death holding fire. Not his other death, though. If Dean closes his eyes, they will show him their insides and Michael’s true face, beautiful and deranged, while his roars burns him up. Dean keeps his eyes on Sam. 

"All the beaches, all of them," Sam is saying, husk- and low-voiced. "I promise. All sand and sun and us. Buy you a muumuu myself."

"…’ss me again?"

"Hey, don’t – hey, it’s okay. I’m here, I’m here, not him. Feel this? Dean? _I_ ’m here to stay, baby."

Dean nods blindly, his fingers cloyed with blood and grace, until the last of Michael has oozed out of him and he can let Jack tie up every loose end of nerve and muscle. Jack touches his wound and the open lips close, the scar shaped like a smile, the blood melting away.

The jolt from pain to peace is too fast, causing the entire scene to black out. But his last sensation is of Sam’s arms, larger than life, and the strong place between his brother’s heart and his hands. And Jack is close, too, is saying "Fathers" in their common tongue. Dean pushes his head down between their arms, confident that when he opens his eyes again, they will see the sun. And why the fuck ever not? Sam is at joy.


End file.
